Yawn from the grave

I was really looking toward to a flight simulator on the Archimedes, so I eagerly grabbed Jet Fighter and booted it up without looking at the sleeve - only to suffer a terrible disappointment. It isn't a flight simulator, it's just Jet Pac.

Why can't we have something original on the Arcnimedes? All we've got are continual re-hashes of old 8-bit games plus a couple of vertical scrollers. What's going on?

Moan finished... on to the game. The scenario is that you, space-suited humanoid that you are, are stuck on a strange planet. Pieces of your spaceship are scattered about on various platforms that hang mysteriously in air - in exactly the way that bricks don't.

Your first task is to assemble the ship, and this is not too difficult in itself. Unfortunately, the denizens of this particular planet belong to the one-touch-death variety and they float around in various patterns. So from the planet's surface you jet off and fly around avoiding trouble and generally having a good time.

Having re-assembled the ship you need to refuel it. Well, someone up there must like you because he - whoever he is - keeps dropping little cannisters marked Fuel down from the sky. However, you have to keep moving around looking as sometimes they come to rest on the previously mentioned platforms.

Meanwhile, you occasionally find other odd items dropping down - Eccles cakes, a letter from him upstairs and numerous other things. Collecting them adds to your score but doesn't help you get off the planet.

Once you've collected enough fuel you can walk behind the rocket and up you go - only to land again for the second level. This time you only need to refuel, but the game continues in a similar vein with more baddies appearing - like the homing owl head and the small but deadly unmoving invincible blob.

All the sprites are well animated and quite detailed but the colour choice is rather garish. The overall playing area is several times larger than the screen and the scrolling is very smooth.

Control is via the mouse and very easy, but the screen background is a set of stars which never move. This means that, unless there happens to be something else on the screen, you can't tell how fast you're moving, and as such it's very easy to bump into the baddies.

Perhaps I'm too old for this game and youngsters - say 5 to 10 - might find it fun. Although well implemented it lacks any staying power and it certainly didn't have me running back for more. Considering the high quality of Orion, also by Minerva, I'm surprised that this made it to the shelves at the same price.

Lazarus